Tag: psychology

Study: ‘More Diversity of Thought on the Political Right Than on the Political Left’ – And It’s Not Even Close

A 2023 study in the British Journal of Social Psychology has recently gone viral, confirming objectively what critical thinkers in the previous decade had already deduced: that the political right “diverges widely” in thought, whereas the political left “coalesces around a very narrow set of opinion.”

On Monday, June 23, Rasmussen’s Mark Mitchell, whose record of predictive accuracy as a pollster stands alone among all pundits in the previous American decade, posted a highlight from the viral British Journal of Social Psychology study.

The most widely circulated response to Mitchell’s post linked the full fifteen page study from the British Journal of Social Psychology, which published five different charts, or “heatmaps,” all confirming, based on network modeling data, the same hypothesis that the researchers tendered: that, overwhelmingly, leftists tend to engage in “groupthink,” while members of the political right tend to think independently.

The psychological study posited that personal attitudes shape political identities. The researchers formed clusters of left-wing participants and right-wing participants within the study. Then, the researchers surveyed the extreme degree to which the participants held their views on key political issues.

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Science Stopped Believing in Porn Addiction. You Should, Too

Though porn addiction is not diagnosable, and never has been, there is a large self-help industry surrounding the concept. Mostly online (though in religious areas, such as Utah, there are numerous in-person treatment sites), this industry promotes the idea that modern access to the Internet, and the porn that thrives there, has led to an epidemic of dysregulated, out-of-control porn use, and significant life problems as a result.

Over recent years, numerous studies have begun to suggest that there is more to the story than just porn. Instead, we’ve had growing hints that the conflicts and struggles over porn use have more to do with morality and religion, rather than pornography itself. I’ve covered this surge of research in numerous posts and articles.

Now, researchers have put a nail in the coffin of porn addiction. Josh Grubbs, Samuel Perry and Joshua Wilt are some of the leading researchers on America’s struggles with porn, having published numerous studies examining the impact of porn use, belief in porn addiction, and the effect of porn on marriages. And Rory Reid is a UCLA researcher who was a leading proponent gathering information about the concept of hypersexual disorder for the DSM-5. These four researchers, all of whom have history of neutrality, if not outright support of the concepts of porn addiction, have conducted a meta-analysis of research on pornography and concluded that porn use does not predict problems with porn, but that religiosity does.

The researchers lay out their argument and theory extremely thoroughly, suggesting that Pornography Problems due to Moral Incongruence (PPMI) appear to be the driving force in many of the people who report dysregulated, uncontrollable, or problematic pornography use. Even though many people who grew up in religious, sexually conservative households have strong negative feelings about pornography, many of those same people continue to use pornography. And then they feel guilty and ashamed of their behavior, and angry at themselves and their desire to watch more.

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NYC teen raped more than 30 times by female shrink known as ‘Big Foot’ at juvie jail: lawsuit

A Staten Island teen was allegedly raped dozens of times by his female counselor — known as “Big Foot” — at an upstate juvenile detention facility, while staffers joked about it, he claimed in a lawsuit.

The victim, now 21, was just 17 in 2021 when he was sent to Brookwood Youth Facility, about 45 minutes south of Albany, and first encountered associate psychologist Maya Hayes, who held frequent counseling sessions with him in her private office, according to the litigation.

The sexual abuse began about three months after the accuser, whose name is being withheld by The Post, arrived, the suit claims. It didn’t end until he had been raped more than 30 times, he claimed.

Hayes, 47, allegedly “groomed and manipulated [the victim] into trusting that what she was doing had some basis in legitimate care and treatment. It did not,” he said in court papers.

Hayes “used and exploited her position of trust and authority . . . to her disgusting advantage and her own depraved benefit . . . to sexually abuse and exploit as many children as possible under the guise of performing routine and necessary counseling sessions,” the teen alleged.

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‘Big Brother’ isn’t just watching — He’s changing how your brain works

Every time you walk down a city street, electronic eyes are watching. From security systems to traffic cameras, surveillance is ubiquitous in modern society. Yet these cameras might be doing more than just recording our movements: according to a new study that peers into the psychology of surveillance, they could be fundamentally altering how our brains process visual information.

While previous research has shown that surveillance cameras can modify our conscious behavior – making us less likely to steal or more inclined to follow rules – a new study published in Neuroscience of Consciousness suggests that being watched affects something far more fundamental: the unconscious way our brains perceive the world around us.

“We found direct evidence that being conspicuously monitored via CCTV markedly impacts a hardwired and involuntary function of human sensory perception – the ability to consciously detect a face,” explains Associate Professor Kiley Seymour, lead author of the study, in a statement.

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15.5 Million Adult Americans Think They Have ADHD

Like most alleged psychiatric disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a fraud diagnosis. Put simply, and honestly, there is no abnormality in the brain that is ADHD.

The mental health and pharmaceutical industries can say it exists…that it’s a real brain disorder, but it just isn’t true. This doesn’t stop such august institutions like the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from reporting that fifteen and a half million American adults suffer from ADHD. Of course, this is the same federal agency that said the covid vaccine was effective, would stop people from getting covid and stop them from spreading covid. Oops!

Nevertheless, the recent report from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) claims that 15.5 million US adults are living with the condition and explain that “many are being let down by poor access to treatment.”

First let’s review what the American Psychiatric Association says about ADHD in its billing bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual 5. According to the nation’s top psychiatric doctors, ADHD in adults consists of the following:

An ADHD presentation that’s predominantly hyperactive/impulsive can be diagnosed if five or more symptoms of hyperactivity/impulsivity have persisted for at least six months. The person should also have less than five symptoms of inattention.[3]

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The American Psychological Association Wants (More) Federal Funding To Curb Online “Misinformation”

The American Psychological Association (APA) is among those organizations enlisted to join the “war on misinformation” back in 2021, when APA took a $2 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to help push the Covid narratives of the time.

APA’s particular task there was to come up with “a scientific consensus statement on the science of misinformation.”

Now, APA is clamoring for even more federal money as it declares psychology to be “leading the way on fighting misinformation” and advertises psychologists as the right people to research the problem (as it has been presented over the last years), and also be “part of the solution.”

An article on APA’s site doesn’t shy away from using terminology that spreads a sense of alarm, such as “the scourge of misinformation” and asserting that clinicians now have to treat patients “subsumed” by conspiracy theories, while institutions and communities are all allegedly suffering unspecified “harm.”

And APA also doesn’t shy away from mentioning the US presidential election, or from positioning that event as something that makes combating misinformation “messier and more important than ever.”

Messy it is, alright. To position itself properly among all those vying for funding/influence by exaggerating the threat posed by misinformation as a new phenomenon, APA actually states that, with the election in mind, fighting misinformation is “one of the top trends facing the field (physiology) in 2024.”

Really, APA? Maybe the author meant – a top trend faced by the organization itself, since it has had to show something in return for the $2 million 2021 CDC grant given to it to research “the science of stopping misinformation.”

(Spoiler: that “science” is already well-developed and applied; it’s called censorship.)

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‘Disturbing Gibberish’: New Trans Textbook For Psychiatrists Could Harm Millions Of Kids, Critics Say

A new “cutting-edge” textbook on transgenderism written with the help of activists will be used to train psychiatrists and could harm millions of children in the future, some experts have warned.

“Gender-Affirming Psychiatric Care,” just released on Amazon at $58, is a textbook printed by American Psychiatric Association (APA) Publishing.

The textbook signals early on that it’s more subjective than objective, quoting a feminist studies professor saying, “Scientific neutrality is a fallacy.”

The content has prompted some critics to question the textbook’s reliance on a mix of transgender-identifying professionals writing about their experiences, limited scientific studies, and neo-Marxist critical theories.

“This is a huge issue; millions more kids will be harmed,” said Dr. Lauren Schwartz, a psychiatrist in Oklahoma speaking out against the rush to “transition” children.

The textbook’s introduction says the book is based on an “evidence-informed approach” instead of an evidence-based approach, which is more scientific, she told The Epoch Times.

The 26 chapters are written by 56 authors, 50 of whom are in the transgender community, according to the textbook’s foreword.

Chapters include affirming “two-spirit people,” a term used to refer to someone who believes he or she is both sexes, and one about “double queer” people—or people who identify as transgender and have a mental disability.

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Jordan Peterson forced to undergo reeducation from Ontario College of Psychologists to retain his license

Psychologist and former University of Toronto professor Dr. Jordan Peterson was ordered by the Ontario College of Psychologists to undergo a reeducation training program over his social media posts that uphold free speech and speak out against gender ideology and medical mistreatment of minors in service to the lie that humans can change sex.

He received a great deal of support in his quest to not have to undergo reeducation to retain his license, and hundreds rallied on his behalf. Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre also backed Peterson against the authoritarian overreach of the Ontario College of Psychologists, who took the word of people who claimed they where “harmed” by simply seeing Peterson’s remarks online as proof of “harm.”

Peterson spoke about the upcoming verdict a day before it was levied, saying “The decision of an Ontario court re the allegations levied against me by @CPOntario is due tomorrow. I stand by what I have said and done and wish them luck in their continued prosecution. They’re going to need it. I tweeted and otherwise expressed my opposition to trans surgery butchery, @JustinTrudeau and his minions, and the lying climate apocalypse-mongers. All that’s looking pretty good from my end. And if I can’t express such opinions in Canada, I will let the world know.”

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Psychedelic drugs like LSD could enhance the effects of brain simulation

New research provides evidence that LSD alters the effects of brain stimulation and produces different and potentially larger changes in brain activity. The preliminary findings suggest that psychedelic drugs and brain stimulation may have a synergistic effect that could be used in innovative ways for treating various conditions. The proof-of-concept study has been published in the journal Psychedelic Medicine.

Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy has shown promising potential as a therapeutic approach for various mental health conditions. This treatment combines the use of psychedelic substances, such as psilocybin or LSD, with psychotherapy sessions to enhance the therapeutic process.

The psychedelic substances used in this type of therapy are known to induce altered states of consciousness, leading to profound experiences that can have therapeutic benefits. These substances are thought to work by affecting brain receptors, particularly the serotonin 2A receptor, which influences perception, mood, and cognition.

These drugs have also been found to enhance neural plasticity, which refers to the brain’s ability to reorganize and form new connections. This may contribute to their long-term therapeutic effects. It is believed that combining psychedelic drugs with therapies like psychotherapy or brain stimulation could help direct these neuroplastic changes and lead to lasting behavioral changes.

“Current treatments like transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) have a large potential to help people with a variety of psychiatry disorders, however, these neuromodulatory treatments tend to have relatively short-lived effects,” explained study author Lucas Dwiel, a postdoctoral fellow at The Doucette Lab at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. “So if we could prolong the effects of these treatments by first using drugs like LSD to make the brain more malleable or susceptible to change, we could help a large number of patients achieve their therapeutic goals.”

The researchers conducted experiments using rats to eliminate the biases inherent in human studies. The study focused on the effects of LSD and involved two main components: measuring brain activity changes after LSD administration and assessing the effects of brain stimulation combined with LSD.

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Serial Killer John Wayne Gacy Tried to ‘Manipulate’ Criminal Profiler in Newly Disclosed Death Row Letter

A psychoanalyst who wanted to interview serial killer John Wayne Gacy while he was imprisoned ended discussions after Gacy required completion of a questionnaire.

John Kelly said he gave up trying to interview the convicted killer one year before his 1994 execution in an Illinois prison.

Fox News further reported:

Illinois serial killer John Wayne Gacy made such creepy demands to a criminal profiler that the psychoanalyst gave up on his attempts to interview him a year before he faced the death penalty at the Stateville prison.

The “Killer Clown” sent a pamphlet maintaining his innocence and demanded the profiler fill out a questionnaire full of personal questions and send it back with a photo.

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